Jan 17, 2007:
Berlinale 2007: Special Events of the Retrospective and Homage

The Berlinale and the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen are pleased to present a number of outstanding film restoration projects from Germany and abroad during this year’s Retrospective and Homage.

The first highlight of 2007 will be the premiere of the rediscovered colour version of Hamlet (Svend Gade/Heinz Schall, Germany 1920/21) with Asta Nielsen in the title role. Unlike other works with this silent film actress, the film had never been lost, though until recently only a black-and-white version existed. On occasion of the 57th Berlinale, the Retrospective will present the elaborately restored colour version for the first time: on February 10 at the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. Composer and clarinettist Michael Riessler has written a new score in which archaic sounds from nature are combined with electronically-generated material and the sounds of historical instruments.

The restoration of Hamlet was realized by the Deutsches Film Institut (DIF) and ZDF in cooperation with ARTE. Before its screening, a panel of experts will discuss the importance of the film and provide background information on its restoration at the Filmhaus on Potsdamer Platz.

The Retrospective will show still another sensational rediscovered work on February 17 and 18: Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria, the first monumental work in film history to achieve international success. This early masterpiece of Italian cinema, whose magnificent sets and brilliant colours are still fascinating today, exists in two versions. The Museo Nazionale del Cinema in Turin has restored the original silent version (Italy 1913/14) and, what is more, the 1931 sound version, which had been thought lost.

Events at the Deutsche Kinemathek - Museum für Film und Fernsehen

The Deutsche Kinemathek has organised a series of panel discussions, lectures and talks to accompany this year’s Retrospective and Homage.

American director Arthur Penn, to whom this year’s Berlinale Homage is dedicated, will be a guest of the house on February 14. Robert Müller, co-editor of the only monograph on this great master of American cinema ever published in German, will talk with Arthur Penn about important stages in his career.

The series of events for the Retrospective will begin with a panel discussion on the publication “City Girls. Frauenbilder im Stummfilm”. Authors Annette Brauerhoch, Heike-Melba Fendel, Fabienne Liptay and Daniela Sannwald will speak about images of the so-called New Woman in the 1910s and 1920s.

In her interdisciplinary lecture “Künstlerinnen der Verwandlung: Loie, Isadora, Ruth und Josephine”, Susanne Marschall will focus on four women dancers who had a substantial impact on other art forms. Jenny Hammerton will present “Eve's Film Review”, a cinemagazine which was conceived primarily for female audiences and was extremely popular in Great Britain from 1921 to 1933. In “Lachende Körper. Backfische im deutschen Kino um 1910”, Claudia Preschl will devote herself to comic women in silent film.

In a panel with Thomas Christensen (Danish Film Institute), Grover Crisp (Sony Pictures Entertainment), Juliane Lorenz (Fassbinder Foundation) and Elfi Bernt (ARRI Cinetechnic), Prof. Martin Koerber (FHTW Berlin) will discuss current issues of film restoration in the age of digitisation based on actual restoration procedures.

In 2005 the Retrospective presented the reconstructed version of Battleship Potemkin (1925) – the outcome of years of research and restoration work. In 2007, the film will be released on DVD. The edition will include extensive bonus material, a part of which Grimme prize-winner Artem Demenok will present in Dem Panzerkreuzer auf der Spur, his documentary about the different versions and the restoration of Sergei Eisenstein’s masterpiece.

Further details about events at the Museum für Film und Fernsehen and the films of the Retrospective and Homage can be found at www.deutsche-kinemathek.de and at www.berlinale.de.